


upon these words (you continue to begin)

by SublimeDiscordance



Series: silence, made whole [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, Muteness, Surprise! - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11954442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SublimeDiscordance/pseuds/SublimeDiscordance
Summary: “Well, this certainly explains why your father and I haven't seen much of you,” Stacker says over his coffee, what little Yancy can see of his mouth twitching up into a smile.





	upon these words (you continue to begin)

**Author's Note:**

> This literally just fell out of my brain. I don't know where exactly all this is coming from. Unbeta'd.

Yancy finds himself thinking that the sight of Raleigh scrunching up his face like that shouldn’t be as goddamn adorable as it is.

 _I don’t get it_ , he signs, lips pursed in a pout. Chuck is across from Raleigh, his legs crossed in a mirror of Yancy’s brother, and he lets out a sigh with so much more patience than Yancy would probably have under the circumstances.

“Auslan isn’t like ASL. In ASL, you sign a lot like you speak. It's usually subject, or the main focus of the sentence, then it's predicate, which is what the subject is doing, and then an object, or what the subject is acting on. Like, if I wanted to say—”

But Raleigh is already shaking his head. Confidence swirls through Yancy’s mind that it's not because the kid doesn't understand what a subject, predicate, or object are. After all, he's fairly certain Raleigh grasped basic—and some more advanced—sentence structures at least two years ago.

_Not that. Why do you use two hands for the alphabet?_

Yancy watches as Chuck’s face shifts through several emotions rapidly. Though they’ve only been dating about two months, he’d like to think he’s getting fairly good at reading those tiny expressions. How that uptick of Chuck’s eyebrow indicates surprise, or that little twist of his mouth confusion and trying to think of something. And how the small hint of a smile he settles into means he’s amused enough that he thinks he needs to hide it.

“Because that’s how we do it, Ray. Why do you use one hand in ASL?”

Raleigh blinks, his eyes widening almost comically. He raises his hands, pauses, then puts them back down. Yancy can feel himself grinning at the gobsmacked expression on Raleigh’s face. After all, at nine— _I’m almost ten, Yance!_ —years old, Yancy figures it’s about time Raleigh truly started thinking about these kinds of things. Kid’s smart enough that Yancy’s fairly certain he can handle questioning a few basic assumptions in his life.

“You okay, kiddo?”

Raleigh makes a shushing gesture at him, brows creased, before looking back up at Chuck.

_Because it’s easier. Fewer hands?_

Raleigh ends his second phrase with multiple repeats of the question sign. Yancy can practically hear the lack of surety in it. Across from Raleigh, Chuck nods, expression shifted back to encouraging.

“Right. That could be why. Really, though, no one’s sure.”

Raleigh sighs, lips puttering dramatically.

_How did you learn both? One is hard enough._

Yancy tenses for perhaps a half-second, his chest cooling. He’s heard this story before—on one of the first few dates he and Chuck went on. Back when they’d been trading backstories— _origin stories_ , he’s sure Raleigh would’ve called them with that childish grin of his. Without a word, he folds his laptop closed and slips out of his spot on the couch and onto the floor. One leg settles behind Chuck while the other curls into his side.

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Yancy whispers, hands split between rubbing up and down Chuck’s back and fiddling with the material of Chuck’s shirt. Chuck, however, shakes his head without looking at him, motions almost imperceptible.  

“My mum was American,” Chuck answers, voice level. “She was born deaf, and learned ASL in the states. Then she moved to Oz and married my old man. To talk to her, I had to learn ASL. But one of our neighbors only knew Auslan, so mum started teaching me and herself.” Chuck shrugs helplessly, laughing a little. “I’m better at ASL, ’specially since we moved back out here when my old man remarried, but I can hold a conversation in Auslan, I think. Haven’t really practiced much since Mum died, though, so not sure how good I’d really be.”

Raleigh has his hands curled together in his lap, biting his lower lip for a few seconds, before he signs, _I’m sorry_.

Chuck nods, smiling faintly, before glancing back at Yancy.  

“Thought.”

Yancy tilts his head to the side, brows furrowing, making himself every inch concerned and serious.

“Uh oh. Sounds dangerous.”

Chuck doesn’t even get a chance to playfully smack him before Raleigh’s shuffled forward and mock-punched Yancy on the knee with one of his little huffs. Then he has the audacity to glare at Yancy and sign, _Be nice_.

Chuck laughs at the way Yancy grumbles, and Yancy unceremoniously reaches out to snag Raleigh by the waist and pull him into the pile he and Chuck are already making.

“Oh no you don’t, mister. You know what happens to little brothers who back-talk their older brothers, don’t you?”

Raleigh shakes his head no, squirming and trying to break the grip Yancy’s got on him. The kid may be getting taller and ganglier every day, but it’s not enough, especially given the huge grin he’s wearing. The huffing he’s making has changed from petulant to what Yancy imagines is his best attempt at laughter. Yancy leans in, pulling Raleigh closer and wrapping the kid tighter in his arms. Leans until his mouth is right next to the kid’s ear before whispering, “They get _tickled_.”

Raleigh _writhes_ in his grip, but it doesn’t keep Yancy from sinking his fingertips into his brother’s armpits. Despite the increase in squirming, his grip holds.

“Say uncle, Rals,” he feels the smile spreading across his face as the kid tries to buck him off, his hoarse wheezing-laughter almost loud in Yancy’s ears.

“Not too point out the obvious,” Chuck sounds almost apologetic, “but if he can’t talk...”

“We have a signal,” Yancy turns to Chuck, finds his brows raised and so elaborates. “Morse code S. Three quick taps, for ‘stop.’ Was one of the first things I taught him to make sure I didn’t hurt him while I was changing his bandages. If he really wants me to stop, he’ll—”

Almost as if on cue, Raleigh uses a hand to slap Yancy’s arm three times in quick succession. He immediately lets Raleigh go, and the kid collapses against him, breathing heavily. Yancy’s smile feels like it can’t decide whether or not it’s even capable of getting wider. The kid’s bangs have fallen over his eyes, and Yancy spends a moment pushing them back. Raleigh’s glaring at him, but without any real heat behind it.

“He’ll do that,” Yancy finishes, leaning forward to place a soft kiss on the kid’s forehead. Raleigh may scrunch up his face in an expression that requires no translation, but Yancy lets it slide.

“Huh,” Chuck grunts from his place at Yancy’s side, and reaches over to purposefully mess up one of the strands of Raleigh’s hair Yancy’d just gotten to stop falling down. Yancy smacks his hand lightly, the light feeling already in his chest expanding when Raleigh scrunches his face and smacks both their hands away.

That doesn’t require any translation, either.

“That’s cool, though. Kinda like a safeword. Except—okay, wow,” the small smile Chuck had been building up vanishes as he flames red, “no, _no_ , forget I said anything, no, I—”

Yancy lets himself laugh. When Chuck just looks at him, affronted but still as red as a sunrise, Yancy leans forward to nuzzle against Chuck’s temple before letting his lips leave his smile there too. Lets himself savor the warmth that flows through him as he does. Chuck had been hesitant about them openly showing affection in front of Raleigh at first, and had only relaxed his stance in the last week or so. Raleigh, as Yancy had assured Chuck repeatedly would be the case, doesn't react much at all.

“It’s okay. I know what you meant.”

Chuck opens his mouth to speak, but whatever he’d been about to say is cut off by the doorbell. He tilts his head at Yancy with a frown.

“Company?”

Yancy internally swears. Mentally catalogues the date, then internally swears again.

“Raleigh has a sleepover with his best friend tonight. I almost forgot.”

Raleigh shoots up from Yancy’s side so fast that Yancy gets an elbow to the gut. He grunts, but manages to shout after his brother as the kid bolts towards the stairs, “Rals? Did you remember to clean your room this morning?”

Cleaning, in this case, likely meaning shoving what few things Raleigh has into his closet. The kid’s footsteps don’t pause in their tromping rhythm, but Raleigh does at least turn long enough to shake his head in a negative, eyes wide. Yancy makes a shooing motion even though the kid’s not looking anymore.

“Go do that, then. I’ll get the door.”

He stands and offers a hand to Chuck as Raleigh’s footsteps retreat. Grunts when Chuck uses the hand to haul himself up in a single, fluid motion. Though Chuck looks like he might be skinny beyond being broad-shouldered, Yancy knows from hands-on experience that he’s pretty much made of compact muscle. Basically, Chuck is heavier than he looks. And _stronger_ than he looks—which had been a _very_ pleasant surprise. Once Chuck is on his feet, though, he moves past Yancy towards the front door, pausing only long enough to lean over and leave the impression of his lips on Yancy’s forehead.

“You stay here and _relax_. Let someone else worry about welcoming random strangers into your home, eh?”

“They're not random, they're— _Chuck_ ,” Yancy calls after Chuck’s retreating back, because _jesus_ this is not a way to get him to _relax_ , “Chuck, I can—”

He's already started towards the door anyway. Is less than five feet behind Chuck when Chuck swings it open to reveal Mako standing in front of her father—Stacker, one of the few parents who’d actually been willing to _help_ when Yancy’d been so _lost_ about raising a five year old. Really, it'd been Raleigh that’d introduced them—through his friendship with Mako—and it's just further proof, in Yancy’s mind, of the kind of person his brother is going to be. Yancy steps forward to greet the older man, to apologize for Chuck being the one to answer because him having a stranger over the night the man’s daughter is staying over is likely not inspiring _any_ kind of confidence. But before he can so much as open his mouth, Chuck speaks.

“Dad?”

At the same time, Stacker’s eyes widen as he says, “Charlie?”

 

———

 

“Well, this certainly explains why your father and I haven't seen much of you,” Stacker says over his coffee, what little Yancy can see of his mouth twitching up into a smile. It's strange, Yancy’s always been aware of Stacker’s faint accent—British, mostly, he thinks—but around Chuck’s Australian drawl it seems to become more pronounced.

Across the table from Stacker, Chuck glares halfheartedly at Yancy. Yancy’s placed himself at the third side of the table, between Stacker and Chuck, and he's just holding his coffee mug to let the heat radiating from it warm his hands. He's never been much for coffee—the flavor isn't his favorite, and it seems to make him more tired than anything else—but Chuck sucks the stuff down in the mornings like his life depends on it. About a month into them dating—so about a month and a half to two months ago probably—Chuck had brought over a pot and grinder and casually, repeatedly, ‘forgotten’ to take them back to his place. Yancy still doesn’t drink the stuff, but he _had_ bought a bag of the brand Chuck seems to like once the first one had run out.

Once Raleigh and Mako had gone up to Raleigh’s room, Chuck had pointedly asked if Yancy had anything to _drink_ , the implication clear. However, with an unruly nine-almost-ten year old in the house, alcohol is just one of many things Yancy can not— _will_ not—allow himself to keep around.

That, and he's already promised himself he'll give Raleigh a better childhood than he ever had. If not better financially-speaking, then at least he'll make sure his brother never doubts that he's loved, that he's never made to feel like a burden Yancy has to drink away like their father did. Not even for a single moment.

So, coffee. At least it smells good. Yancy takes an experimental sip, but feels his face scrunch at the taste.

“I have school too, Dad,” jesus christ that is going to take some getting used to, Yancy finds himself thinking as Chuck speaks, “and you two’ve never really seemed all that interested in who I’m fucking. Why the hell does it matter?”

Stacker takes a slow drag from his mug, swallows, his eyes never leaving Chuck. Yancy can see how Chuck visibly squirms under that gaze.

“Yancy is a family friend. His brother Raleigh is a good friend of your sister’s. I’m just surprised you didn't know, is all.”

Chuck’s glaring at Yancy again. Like last time, it's not the glare Chuck makes when he's actually mad. More, he's glaring because it's how his face reacts when he feels compromised in some way—surprised or guilty, maybe. Probably just surprised. If Yancy’s learned anything these past months, it's that Chuck _despises_ being surprised by anything.

“Well, someone didn't bloody tell me, did they?”

“To be fair,” Yancy looks down at his mug, shifting it on the table with gentle grinding sounds, “I was a few seconds away from telling you when you went to open the door. Although, at the time, I was only going to say it was Raleigh’s friend Mako. I...honestly had no idea you two were related.”

He means it to come out as a joke, but even to his own ears it sounds flat. Chuck doesn't look like he thinks that's quite enough, but he huffs—the sound so much like Raleigh that Yancy almost does a double take—and crosses his arms over his chest. Yancy would never say it aloud, but Chuck looks entirely too much like an adorable child when he's pouting.

“I guess that explains why Mako started teaching herself ASL a few years back.”

“Speaking of,” Stacker nods in Yancy’s direction, “make sure you check on them some time tonight. I caught them up at almost midnight when Raleigh came over last, signing away.”

Yancy chokes on air, has to set his mug on the table or risk spilling it.

“How did you catch them?”

Stacker snorts. He takes another sip of his coffee, breathing out as he swallows.

“They’d left the light on.”

There’s a sound from upstairs, like repeated stomping, that reverberates through the ceiling. Yancy frowns at Stacker, ignoring it.

“You didn’t—?” Yancy starts, but is cut off by a wave of Stacker’s hand.

“No, no, Mako’s always slept with the hallway light on. And I know about Raleigh’s,” he hums softly to himself, “ _feelings_ about being in the dark. Mako told me the first time he spent the night. No, this,” the sound Stacker makes sounds halfway between a sigh and a laugh, “this was them leaving _the lights_ on.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to check on them,” Yancy says, making a mental note. He should probably set an alarm on his phone before he forgets, really.

“You can share watch with Charlie.”

Yancy feels his face heat at the same time that Chuck’s face goes red.

“Christ, Dad, who says I’m spending the night?”

Stacker is in the middle of drinking his coffee when he snorts, and it’s almost comical how close he clearly comes to spewing all over the table. Yancy stands to grab a napkin even as Stacker’s snort turns into soft laughter.

“I’m not _daft_ , son,” Stacker manages to say through his chuckles. “Says that.”

Chuck opens his mouth to respond, but the sounds of socked feet interrupt him as Mako practically flings herself down the stairs. She rushes up to Chuck’s side and grabs his arm, saying something Yancy can’t understand in rapid Japanese. He hears Raleigh’s name, but that’s about it. Whatever it is, it makes Stacker grin while Chuck responds, also in Japanese.

Of course Chuck knows Japanese.

“She wants you and Charlie to team up with her and Raleigh for something,” Stacker says, probably seeing the confusion written on his face, Yancy thinks. “She says Raleigh is cheating.”

Mako glares at Stacker, pouting and stomping her foot.

“He _is_.”

There’s a creak from the stairs, and Yancy looks over to see Raleigh standing on the bottom step. The kid sticks his tongue out when he sees Yancy looking.

 _Not cheating_ , he signs, _she’s just not as good_.

“Be nice,” Yancy admonishes. “If that’s the case, then _teach_ her.”

 _But then she might win_.

“Oh my _go_ -osh,” Yancy catches himself with a sideways glance at Stacker and Chuck, “fine, that’s it. Chuck,” he fixes his brother with a grin, makes sure to show his teeth, “go with her. I think Rals needs a lesson in losing gracefully.”

Mako cheers as Chuck whoops, both of them heading for the stairs.

“Ready to get taken down, little man?” Chuck asks. Raleigh’s smile is defiant.

 _You can try_.

Yancy translates for Stacker as they're all disappearing back upstairs. The older man rips his head back and laughs loudly, teeth stark against his dark skin as he smiles wolfishly.

“I suppose I'll head out, then. I think you have a little brother in need of some education.”

Yancy stands when Stacker does. Takes the other man’s cup and drops it in the sink beside his own.

“I'll walk you out, sir.”

Stacker shakes his head, but doesn't object when Yancy follows him.

“How many more times’re you going to make me ask you to stop with that ‘sir’ nonsense around me n’ Herc? We’re Chuck’s fathers, not yours.”

Yancy holds the door for Stacker as he approaches it, and Stacker nods.

“Probably at least one more time,” Yancy smiles.”And, to be fair, I only knew you ask Mako’s dads before tonight.”

Stacker smiles back, shakes his head again. The faint light and distant chirps of crickets make the moment almost seem like something out of a dream.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Yancy. Watch after them, eh?”

He's not sure what it is, but Yancy gets the distinct impression Stacker isn't talking about just Mako. Or even just Mako and Raleigh. He nods.

“I will, sir.”

 

———

 

Once Yancy starts _teaching_ Mako the controls of Mario Kart, she figures the rest out surprisingly quickly. Which, of course, means that she starts beating _all_ of them resoundingly—even Yancy. When they switch to Smash Brothers, she takes to it like a snowflake to a blizzard. Overall, Yancy’s fairly certain the girl has more hand-eye coordination, concentration, and calm logic than the rest of ten put together.

Of course, it certainly doesn't help that Raleigh keeps nudging him with an elbow whenever Yancy knocks the kid out, or that Chuck’s leg is radiating heat into his side the entire time.

When Raleigh gets tired of losing—by the end, he's pouting significantly less, so Yancy will count that as a win—Mako pulls out the coloring books she'd brought from home. Yancy doesn't recognize the subject matter, but a quick flip through tells him there's nothing _bad_ in them at least. Something with dragons and knights and castles and magic, it looks like. And, of course, Raleigh flips directly to the page with a unicorn on it _first_ , grabbing a stubby set of crayons from somewhere in his closet and going to town.

“I feel like an idiot,” Yancy murmurs to Chuck where the two of them are standing in the doorway, playing monitor-slash-chaperone. Raleigh and Mako are sprawled together in the center of the room, heads together, legs squirming against the floor or in the air. They’re conversing in a mixture of Raleigh signing, Mako talking or signing back, and Raleigh writing on the backs of some of his blank pages in crayon when he apparently doesn’t feel like signing. Or, Yancy notices, probably when he doesn’t feel like putting his crayons down. He makes a mental note to look into maybe keeping pads of paper and pens around the house.

“Oh?” He can see Chuck glancing up at him out of the corner of his eye, and can see the wicked glimmer there without even needing to look. “More so than usual?”

“Shut up,” Yancy’s hand reaches out on its own, shoving gently at Chuck’s shoulder. “I mean about you and Stacker and Mako and...Herc.”

He does look then, and finds Chuck raising an eyebrow at him but not saying anything.

“I’ve met Stacker a few times,” he continues, taking the silence as the signals he hopes it is, “but I’ve only met Herc once. And Staker introduced him as his husband, Herc Hansen, and, well,” Yancy shrugs, “Hansen. Australian accent. Soulless redhead.”

He trails off, and ducks the swipe Chuck aims at his head with a low laugh.

“Fuck off,” Chuck grunts at him, though Yancy can see the smile playing at the corner of his lips. “You’re not bleeding funny.”

“My point is,” Yancy extends his hand again, this time letting it rest on Chuck’s shoulder, “that I should’ve realized. I’m sorry if I made things awkward.”

Chuck huffs, but otherwise doesn’t protest when Yancy tugs him into his arms. Chuck is about Yancy’s height, sure, but he’s significantly broader around the shoulders. It makes holding him feel almost like stretching.

“I’m more offended you didn’t spot the family resemblance right away, is all.”

Yancy shoves the fingers of one hand into Chuck’s side, but only once, just enough to make him squirm and squawk.

“Right, because you and Stacker look so alike. And Mako looks _just_ like a younger version of you.”

He nuzzles at the back of Chuck’s neck, where skull meets spine, and is rewarded with a faint tremor and the rising of gooseflesh.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Chuck twists in his grip, arms winding about Yancy’s neck. He leans in close, close enough that their noses are touching, that Yancy can count the flecks of steely blue in his blue-green eyes; that he could count the freckles decorating the bridge of his nose with enough time. “You’re damn lucky I like you, Becket, or I’d’ve run off with some other man _ages_ ago.”

Yancy snorts, keeping the sound quiet with the close proximity. He can feel Chuck’s warm breath on the skin of his face, on his lips.

“I thought you were just with me so you could be friends with my brother. I mean,” he leans his head forward until their foreheads are touching, the contact lazily electric and drawing his mouth up in a smile, “he _did_ find you in a grocery store. Isn’t that how all great friendships begin?”

“Friendship, right,” Yancy feels Chuck huff a laugh, “that’s what this is. Just friendship.”

Though he opens his mouth to reply, something soft paps Yancy on the side of the head and falls. He snatches it without thinking, his fingers closing around a crumpled up piece of paper. He leans back from Chuck far enough that he can unfurl it.

 _Go be gross in your own room_ , it reads in Raleigh’s messy scrawl. Yancy looks up to find both Raleigh and Mako pointedly not looking at them. Rolls his eyes.

“What?” Chuck asks, and Yancy hands the note over. He watches Chuck read it, and shakes with the effort of restraining his laughter as Chuck’s eyes widen.

“You can’t tell us to stop being gross,” Chuck half-gasps, mock offense dripping from every word as he turns towards Raleigh and Mako. “That’s our sacred right. I’m your brother’s boyfriend, you’re _supposed_ to think me macking on him is gross.”

Without ceremony, Raleigh crumples up another piece of paper, turns, and hurls it at Chuck. The kid is making a face at them, both disgusted and defiant. The paper hits Chuck square in the forehead with a gentle sound of impact.

“You wound me, Ray,” Chuck pretends to clutch at his heart even as Raleigh scrawls furiously at the back of his drawing and holds it up, _R. A. L. I. E. G. H._ spelled out in jerky, hasty letters that the kid points at exaggeratedly. “Does this mean our friendship is over?”

With a near-soundless sigh, Raleigh rolls until he's sitting upright, crosses out his previous letters,and scribbles something _._ When he holds the paper back up, he’s written them a short message.

_Go be gross with Yancy._

“Well, guess we better do what the little man says,” Yancy quips, sticking his tongue out to answer the face Raleigh’s making at them.

“Please,” Mako adds, not looking up. “You and Chako are distracting.”

“Oh my—Mako, _please_ don’t call me that in front of him,” Yancy’s never heard Chuck outright _whine_ , but this is probably the closest he’s ever gotten.

“In that case,” Yancy grabs Chuck’s wrists with a grin and bodily hauls his boyfriend towards his room, “you can tell me _all_ about it.”

It might be Yancy’s imagination, but he could swear he sees Mako’s mouth curl up in a devilish little smile. He finds himself laughing as he pushes Chuck into his room, and finds himself thinking, not for the first time, that there’s been a lot more of that since Chuck came into their lives. More laughter. More smiles. More happiness.

It’s amazing what just a few months can change.

 


End file.
